• Traditional Verse -- sometimes referred to as "closed forms"
  • Free Verse -- sometimes referred to as "open forms"
  • Continuous Form
  • Stanzaic Form
  • Fixed Form -- e.g. sonnet, limerick, sestina, villanelle, haiku, etc.
  • Narrative -- e.g., ballad
  • Lyric -- a brief subjective poem strongly marked by imagination, melody, and emotion, and creating a single, unified impression -- e.g., ode, elegy, sonnet, epigram, aphorism, limerick, sestina, villanelle, haiku
  • Dramatic -- e.g., Shakespeare's plays, Browning's dramatic monologues, Ginsberg's Howl


(Adapted from Charters/Charters, Literature and Its Writers, Compact Second Edition, Chapters 8-11, and A Handbook to Literature, 9th edition.)